Mykhailo Koval

Mykhailo Koval (1956-) is a Colonel General of the Ukrainian Army who served as Minister of Defense of Ukraine from 25 March to 3 July 2014. He succeeded Ihor Tenyukh and preceded Valeriy Heletey.

Biography
Mykhailo Koval was born in Izyaslav in Khmelnytskyi Oblast in the Soviet Union (present-day Ukraine) in 1956, and in 1979 he graduated from the Kamianets-Podilsky Higher-Military Engineer Command College. For eight years he served in the Airborne Corps, and he entered the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow in 1987. He graduated in 1990, and for five yeras afterwards he worked in the Airborne Training Center.

In 1997, he graduated from the National University of Defense of  Ukraine, now an independent country. From 2001 to 2002 he commanded the Internal Troops of Ukraine and from then to 2013 led the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. In the aftermath of the Ukrainian Revolution, Mykhailo became the Minister of Defense of the interim government following the resignation of Ihor Tenyukh. On 3 July 2014 he was replaced by Valeriy Heletey by new president Petro Poroshenko.